


Rewriting the Disk

by poisontaster



Series: Dying is Easy [2]
Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-21
Updated: 2007-08-21
Packaged: 2017-11-09 10:43:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/454572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisontaster/pseuds/poisontaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>John's too goddamn old to be going through a sexual identity crisis.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rewriting the Disk

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks again to Rose-In-Texas for keeping me on track.

_Ah, fuck…ah, Jesus…John. Just…fuck me. Please. I wanna. Just…just fuck me._

The thing is, John's too goddamn old to be going through a sexual identity crisis.

A week after he and Matt screwed around—and that's how he thinks of it, "screwed around"—John makes the effort to shower, shave and dress in the closest thing he's got to nice clothes that aren't his dress blues. He goes out to a bar—a regular bar, a piano bar he knows—and picks up the thoroughly nice, thoroughly willing Rebecca St.-James, dental hygienist, whatever the fuck that is. He takes her back to her place and fucks her brains out. Twice. He wants to shower afterward, but she's already making noises about what he likes for breakfast, so he just makes his excuses, shuffles into his clothes as fast as his aching bones allow—which is still pretty damn fast—and exits, stage right.

Jesus, it's _exhausting._

The whole time he feels like he's wearing his uniform anyway or Sunday best or something; something that's too stiff and doesn't fit quite right. His jaw aches from making himself smile so long and remembering not to cuss too much. And he wonders: _Christ, is **this** what dating is like? No wonder I've been avoiding it._

The worst part is when he gets back to his place and he's lying there, but he can't sleep. And he wants to blame it on the sex endorphins, but can't kid a kidder, right? It's close to three when he grits out a loud, _"Fuck!"_ under his breath—which doesn't make him feel better at all—and gropes for his cell. 

Because he knows the kid's still up.

The thing about these fucking cell phones is that they keep getting smaller and it's hard to properly take out your pissedness on a device you have to dial with the tips of your fingernails. John's brewing on a full head of steam when the line starts ringing and it's only when Matt picks up the phone with a lazy, "Hey," that he realizes _he has no idea what he even wants to say to the kid._

Let it never be said that John McClane is not the King of Improvisation, though. "So, I'm thinking I need to get one of these computer things," he says and _where the fuck did that come from?_ His anger deflates out of him like a balloon. "Lucy keeps telling me I need to get a MyFace page."

Matt snorts, chokes, and then cracks up so bad that John starts to worry and review response time for DCPD.

"What?"

"N-nothing," Matt gasps finally. He coughs, deep in his chest. "Nothing. I just…yeah. Forget it. So…what? You want help picking one out?"

"Well, what the hell do I know about computers?"

"Ah…good point. Um. Okay, I can come up this weekend? Does that work?" 

"Yeah." John crosses his legs, free hand resting comfortably on his belly. His pinky rubs idly across the line of elastic on his boxers. "Sure."

It's not until he hangs up that John realizes there was no awkwardness. Not like he thought (dreaded) there'd be.

It's not until he hangs up that John realizes he's smiling. For real, this time.

***

_I just…I want it, okay? Want you to fuck me. Please. Please._

So now John has this computer. This two thousand dollar paperweight—and Jesus, he has no idea how anyone in their right mind can spend so much on these fucking things, which only proves his point that he is _not_ in his right mind right now.

Matt's supposed to be teaching him stuff, more complicated stuff than the hunt-and-peck he uses for his e-mail at the station (which he hardly ever reads anyway) but really, John's "lessons" never last very long. In some ways, John thinks maybe they're trying to make up for all the time it took them to work up to this, whatever the hell it is. 

He still doesn't know what the fuck this is. 

In any case, it feels like they hardly get out of John's bed, Matt's pale body lit by the alien blue glow of the monitor screen—a monstrosity nearly as big as his TV. It makes it feel just a little unreal, to look down and see his hand buried in Matt's messy hair, to watch his cock disappear between those light-discolored lips. John needs his sense of unreality at times like this.

But he's managing, you know? Starting to face up to the fact that maybe John McClane isn't wired as tightly as he always thought he was. That may not sound like much, but everything he's ever done has been built on the rock hard, iron-clad certainty of who the fuck he is. And to have that crumbling away like one of Lucy's sand castles at high tide…

Like the guy in the movie said…he's too old for this shit. 

And then the kid had to go and fuck it up.

***

 _John, please… I just want…I just want you._

A hostage situation in Lower Manhattan—not his fault, thank you kindly—keeps him tied up all afternoon and half the night, so John's late getting home. Not, he thinks, trudging up the stairs tiredly, that there's anyone to give a shit if he's late getting home.

It's been three weeks since he last talked to Matt. That's his fault, John knows. Still, he's got a lot more of his life without Matt in it than the little part with him, and it's not like John Francis McClane can't handle being alone. 

Hell, he prefers it, half the time.

And he's been busy. And stuff. Very busy.

It's not like the criminals catch themselves, you know.

Matt Farrell is sitting on his couch.

John must be more tired than he thought. He knuckles his tired, aching eyes.

Nope. Matt Farrell. Still on his couch. With a redhead. A very pretty redhead.

_If he's fucking someone else on_ my _couch, I'll…_

John stops, not sure where he wants to take that thought. He closes the door behind him, louder than he means to. "Did I miss a memo?"

"Hey." Matt gets up off the couch in a hurry, nervous smile flickering in and out like a bad signal. The girl—woman—in the very short dress with him takes her time about rising, possibly because of the ankle-breaking height of the heels she's wearing…though John doubts it. Unlike Matt, she's got the look of someone very conscious of the appearance she presents. "I didn't think you'd be so late."

"Hostage situation," John answers distantly, still trying to figure out what the hell's going on. Matt opens his mouth. John cuts a warning glance at him. " _No_ , it wasn't my fault."

Matt's laugh is jerky, false, grating against John's nerves. "You're okay, though, right?" John looks from the still anonymous woman—who's eyeing him the way he might size up a Porterhouse—to Matt and finds the kid scrutinizing him in a less sexual but no less intense way. It takes him a second to realize Matt's looking for new injuries and Jesus fucking Christ…is he _blushing_?

"Yeah. I'm good." He _is_ blushing. More than that, he's smirking which is more than halfway to smiling and it's all Matt's fucking fault.

"Good."

While John and Matt have been chewing the fat, Matt's friend—girl?—has been steadily sidling closer, a half-smile on her face that makes her keep an eye on her hands and wonder if she could be hiding a firearm somewhere under that little slip of a dress. He wouldn't put it past her; he once taped one to the nape of his neck, after all.

"Oh, hey…" Matt's voice wavers a little and John can't tell if it's nervousness or something else as the redhead gets up close and personal, winding her arms around John's neck. "This is my friend. Lily."

"I've heard a lot about you," Lily murmurs confidentially, brushing her breast across his chest. They're nice breasts but John's feeling squiffy about the whole thing and it's just _weird_ to walk into his apartment and have this chick all over him while Matt watches. And not the good kind of weird.

"Yeah?" John takes a step sideway, jostling Lily's arms loose and making her teeter on her platforms. "Usually when people say that to me, they're trying to kill me."

Lily laughs uncertainly but throatily, throwing her head back and pushing her breasts at him again. He's so busy watching her that he doesn't notice Matt coming up on his other side until the kid throws an arm around both their shoulders, smushing them back together. "I only told her the good stuff." Matt's smile is too bright, too toothy, like a goddamn politician's shit-eating grin. "Didn't want to frighten her off."

Lily hums and laughs again—more self-assured this time—and gives a little shimmy. And just like that, John gets it.

_Ah, fuck…ah, Jesus…John. Just…fuck me. Please. I wanna. Just…just fuck me._

_I just…I want it, okay? Want you to fuck me. Please. Please._

_John, please… I just want…I just want you._

And there it is again; the reason John hasn't called or seen Matt in three weeks. 

Matt wants John to fuck him. And John? John's not sure where he's at with this whole _suddenly queer_ thing. 

Except he really, really does not want Matt fucking this girl, this _Lily_.

His mind made up—at least that far—John elbows Matt out of the way and loops an arm around Lily's shoulders. "Well, look," he says suavely, "I appreciate you coming by and all, but I think there's been a miscommunication here. Me and Matt…" He glances over his shoulder at Matt, who looks like he's not sure what he wants to say. John doesn't mean to, but he hears his voice soften when he says, "I think me and Matt need to work some stuff out. You know. Alone."

He detours past the couch for Lily to pick up her purse, ignoring her and Matt's protests the whole way. It's not hard; it's a lot like listening to his captain. Or…not listening, as the case may be.

Lily's still talking nineteen to the dozen as he shoves her out the door, and John feels at least a little pang about it, but one last thought about her and Matt together gives him that extra push to slap a twenty in her hand for cab fare and then close and lock the door in her face.

"That wasn't very nice." Matt's back on the couch—on the edge of it, at least—elbows braced on his knees and looking at his feet like the secrets of the fucking ages are written on John's floor and oh, Christ, here they go.

John feels exasperated, he feels fond. He crosses his arms across his chest and pretends he feels neither. "Yeah, well, neither was surprising me with a hooker when I've had a long fucking day and I'm tired. How the hell'd you get in here anyway?"

"She's not a hooker. Jesus, John. I know her from school. Lily's just… Lily's just adventurous. And you never took your damn key back when you stopped calling me."

John grimaces, the taste of guilt sour in his mouth. "And…so what? You thought we'd have some big, happy threesome and that would fix everything?"

"No!" Matt's head jerks up, his expression somewhere between hurt and insulted. Then Matt throws up his hands. "Yes! I don't know. I just…" He sighs.

Watching Matt sit and twist his fingers together between his knees, John is reminded again how ridiculously young Matt is, too young for John to be messing around. The thought makes his chest pinch surprisingly tight. "I just… I thought. You like girls, and I like girls and I thought that if there was a girl there…" He looks up at John and John sees the same thing that scared the piss out of him before, just this naked want, the likes of which he's never seen before, like he's something special, something _good_. 

He's not sure he likes someone looking at him like that.

"You thought it would be easier," John finishes, mouth moving along without him. It's a gift; it's a curse. "You and me."

"Yeah."

John sighs. He's shit at relationships; he told the kid this. The fact that he and Holly lasted as long as they did had more to do with Holly's iron-jawed determination than anything John ever did. But despite all the stuff Holly threw at him at the end there, John did try. 

He reaches and snags the kid's hand, wrapping his fingers hard enough around Matt's wrist that when he tugs, Matt comes up off the couch. Matt doesn't fit into his arms, too tall, too gangling and not sure of where he goes. He looks at John and his eyes are wide, scared. John would tell Matt he doesn't need to be scared, but given the way his own heart's jumping fit to beat the band, he'd probably be wasting his breath. 

"We don't need a girl…to make this work," John sighs, dragging his thumbs across Matt's cheeks.

If it were up to John, that would be the end of it, but Matt must not've gotten that memo, because he looks at John like he's lost his mind. "Dude. I asked… I asked you to fuck me and you ran out of the room like your ass was on fire."

"Oh!" he says, stung, "oh, oh! I did not!"

"Ass on fire," Matt repeats stubbornly, even as his fingers hook into the belt loops of John's jeans.

John's hands are on Matt's waist, rubbing the material of his shirt under his thumbs. He ducks his head alongside Matt's, Matt's hair tickling his face and catching in the stubble. "We don't need a girl."

And that was that. Simple as stepping over a line on the sidewalk.

_…step on a crack, break your mama's back…_

Matt inhales; his breath hitches unsteadily. "John…"

John turns his face. "Shut up," John murmurs, breath ghosting across Matt's soft, bitten mouth. Matt makes a soft, stifled noise when John closes the gap, opening Matt to his tongue; a moment later, Matt responds in kind, tilting his head, pressing into John with hands and body and mouth. John wraps his arms around Matt, crushing the two of them together, maybe even hurting the kid but Matt just _sighs_ , deep and with his whole body, and forces closer in. 

Warm; Matt is so warm. John's been in the apartment long enough to shake the chill but he only feels warm where they intersect skin to skin, unfreezing the truth from inside him. "I missed you," he whispers into Matt. "I missed you."

John's eyes open, startled by his own voice, his own admission. Not that it really changes anything. He pushes Matt back from him, ignoring the bloom of panic in the kid's eyes. "Go," he says. "Take your clothes off. Get on the bed." He tugs at his belt. Matt's still staring at him. John points. _"Go!"_

The expression on Matt's face doesn't really change, but—holding John's gaze as he backs toward the bedroom—he reaches down and shucks his shirt over his head, coming out mussed and wide-eyed. John's cock jerks and if he wasn't sure that they were doing this before…yeah. It's really happening now.

He lets his belt hang loose and toes off his shoes at the same time he rips at his button and fly. Matt's still backing up and John finds it _unbelievably hot_ that Matt knows the way to his bedroom without looking. 

"The pants." His voice feels like it grinds out over gravel in his throat but it sends Matt's hand groping for his crotch, squeezing hard. 

"Jesus, don't _do_ that," Matt whispers and the weak desperation of his voice makes the fire in John's belly burn brighter, hotter.

"Pants," he repeats emphatically, letting his jeans sag to his knees before bending to strip them away. When he straightens up, the doorway of his room is empty. John kicks his jeans away and follows the trail of Matt's clothes. 

John's still not sure where exactly he falls on the bell curve of sexuality anymore, but the sight of Matt naked and sprawl-legged on his bed twists John's insides and floods his cock until it's tapping for attention against his stomach.

Braced on his elbows, one of Matt's thighs twitches like he wants to pull his legs together, protect his dick and his belly—no longer as soft as it had been—rolls with his rapid breath. "I brought…" Matt tips his head. "I brought…stuff."

John looks at the nightstand. Matt has indeed brought stuff; three or four different kinds of lube in jars and bottles, two different kinds of condoms in industrial size boxes that it'd take John the rest of his natural life to use up. Nervousness flutters in his belly with tickling little wings, but his dick doesn't flag. If anything, it gets harder, the dull throb of want settling deep in his balls and belly. John scratches through his thinning hair. "Kid, you're vastly overestimating my stamina."

Matt tosses his silly-ass hair back and grins, both shy and sleekly pleased with himself. "Yeah, I don't think so."

John laughs and brings his knees down on the bed, reaching for Matt's hips. Matt pushes up to his hands to drag his mouth across John's, an awkward and fumbling fit that quickly turns to a panting lack of oxygen and the sloppy rub of tongues. John thumbs Matt's bones for long moments, marveling at how soft his skin is there, how delicate it feels, like it would tear if John is too rough with him. "We don't need a girl between us," John murmurs again, trailing down Matt's throat while Matt helpfully tips his head back.

"No?" Matt's hands skim up John's sides, carefully avoiding his ticklish places. It only took one accidental knee to the groin for Matt to get that one. "You gonna fuck me then, McClane?"

John eases him back on the mattress, twisting their hips to slide them together, a slow grind of skin on skin. "Yeah, Compaq; I'm gonna fuck you."

Even now, Matt isn't expecting it; John can tell in the way his eyes close and he shudders from top to bottom, breaking out in fine dots of goose pimples. "John…"

"Shhh." John lingers over Matt's nipple, hard and tight beneath his fingertip. "Now grab the slick, Slick, and show me what to do."

***

John doesn't remember feeling this nervous about fucking even on his wedding day; doesn't remember it being like this when he lost his virginity in what seems like an eon ago. Contrary to what John hazily thought, it's nothing like fucking girls, fingering Matt open, making room for himself inside.

"It's going to hurt," Matt warns him, writhing on the end of John's hand. "But I'm… I'll be okay. Just…don't stop. Not unless I say."

John wonders what his face looks like when Matt says that. That _Matt_ is the one reassuring _him_. He decides it doesn't matter.

It's nothing like fucking girls, fitting himself in Matt's hole. The feel's different, the pressure, the touch of Matt's body, arching up into his, thin and bony and strong. Matt's hands clutch John's shoulders, his sharp, spiteful knees dig into John's sides. 

"Oh, fuck, oh _fuck_ ," Matt gasps, twisting under him. "Just… _oh_ …kiss me, okay? Kiss me."

John's more than happy to kiss him, though that might be overstating the fierce mash of their lips and teeth. Matt keeps licking John's mouth, inside and out, making abrupt, quiet noises each time John pushes into him. Each time, it pushes John a little higher, a little closer.

He wants Matt to get there before he blows out—he's got a reputation, after all; it may not be much of one, but it's his—so John plants both hands flat on the mattress and pushes his knees up under Matt's hips and tells him, "C'mon, Matt. C'mon. You wanna. You know you wanna."

Matt whines and thrusts up even harder. He lets go of John's throbbing shoulder—the bad one—and curves his fingers around his cock, stroking hard and fast. His knuckles rub against John's belly, sweet, teasing, distracting friction.

_I should've thought of that,_ John thinks guiltily. 

But Matt urges him on with strangled quiet, "C'mon, John, _please_ , come on…" and that's when it really hits him; he's been so focused on making it good, at making Matt come that he's lost the sense of how weird this is, John McClane buried to the balls. And it's weird, but not nearly weird as he thought it would be.

John groans and drops his head onto Matt's chest. "Fuck, kid. Matt. It's good. S'so good. Why the fuck haven't we been doing this the whole time?"

Matt chokes, tightens and then laughs.

John chuffs, strains up to kiss the kid again and they chuckle, into each other's mouths.


End file.
